Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

You Crit Like A Girl: The Performance Of Female Identity In The Virtual Gaming Community World Of Warcraft, Connie M. Viamonte

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how gender is expressed and performed in the virtual gaming community of World of Warcraft. Players were approached through the medium of the game and through various on-line bulletin boards to answer surveys and open-ended interview questions about their experiences as a female player or with female players in this virtual society. In addition to answering questions, this project involved participant observations within several different types of realms or servers in World of Warcraft in order to gain a better understanding of community dynamics. The premise for this research is working through an idealistic notion that virtual …

Association Between Childhood Sexual Abuse And Hiv-Related Risk Factors For Hiv-Positive Haitian Women, Marie Sandra Severe

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is one of the least studied HIV-related risk factors in Haiti although research in the United States and Europe has clearly established the link between childhood trauma and HIV risk behaviors. Understanding the role and impact of CSA on HIV-positive Haitian women is likely to strengthen future HIV prevention and treatment efforts aimed at this vulnerable group.

The current study was a cross-sectional examination of baseline data collected during a randomized trial of a cognitive-behavioral stress management (CBSM) intervention in Haiti. The purpose of this study was to analyze the association between CSA and sexual risk …

In Search Of Safety, Negotiating Everyday Forms Of Risk: Sex Work, Criminalization, And Hiv/Aids In The Slums Of Kampala, Serena Cruz

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation offers an in-depth descriptive account of how women manage daily risks associated with sex work, criminalization, and HIV/AIDS. Primary data collection took place within two slums in Kampala, Uganda over the course of fourteen months. The emphasis was on ethnographic methodologies involving participant observation and informal and unstructured interviewing. Insights then informed document analysis of international and national policies concerning HIV prevention and treatment strategies in the context of Uganda. The dissertation finds social networks and social capital provide the basis for community formation in the sex trade. It holds that these interpersonal processes are necessary components for …

Producing Collaborations Through Community-Level Processes Of Climate Change And Water Management Planning, Dumitrita Suzana Mic

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While much attention has been given to the ways local communities may be impacted by climate change, this dissertation focuses ethnographically on the local agencies decision-making processes, a less-studied aspect of this topic. The primary purpose of this dissertation research is to understand how government agencies in southern Florida integrate climate change into their decision-making processes while dealing with political resistance. This research expands our understanding on the cultural politics of a new kind of environmental change, where national and international climate-change politics is brought into local water politics to illuminate how new and not so new visions about life …

The Influence Of Parental Aggression And Cultural Gender Role Beliefs On Hispanic College Women's Experiences With Psychological Aggression, Laura A. Oramas

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Psychological aggression is present in as many as 89-97% of college women’s intimate relationships (Cercone, Beach, & Arias, 2005; Riggs & O’Leary, 1996). Victimization has been linked to negative physical and mental health consequences including depression, anxiety, and chronic pain (Coker, Smith, Bethea, King, & McKeown, 2000; Derrick, Testa, & Leonard, 2014; Pico-Alfonso et al., 2006). Psychological aggression also serves as a risk factor for future or continued physical intimate partner violence (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2014), which can result in bruises, broken bones, or in extreme cases, even death. Parental modeling of appropriate relationship behaviors may …

Comparison Of Linear Functions In Middle Grades Textbooks From Singapore And The United States, Linda D. Fowler

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many U.S. students do not perform well on mathematics assessments with respect to algebra topics such as linear functions, a building-block for other functions. Poor achievement of U.S. middle school students in this topic is a problem.

U.S. eighth graders have had average mathematics scores on international comparison tests such as Third International Mathematics Science Study, later known as Trends in Mathematics and Science Study, (TIMSS)-1995, -99, -03, while Singapore students have had highest average scores. U.S. eighth grade average mathematics scores improved on TIMMS-2007 and held steady onTIMMS-2011. Results from national assessments, PISA 2009 and 2012 and National Assessment …

Public Service Motivation In Public And Nonprofit Service Providers: The Cases Of Belarus And Poland, Palina Prysmakova

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The work motivation construct is central to the theory and practice of many social science disciplines. Yet, due to the novelty of validated measures appropriate for a deep cross-national comparison, studies that contrast different administrative regimes remain scarce. This study represents an initial empirical effort to validate the Public Service Motivation (PSM) instrument proposed by Kim and colleagues (2013) in a previously unstudied context. The two former communist countries analyzed in this dissertation—Belarus and Poland— followed diametrically opposite development strategies: a fully decentralized administrative regime in Poland and a highly centralized regime in Belarus. The employees (n = 677) of …

Resistance Performances: (Re)Constructing Spaces Of Resistance And Contention In The 2010-2011 University Of Puerto Rico Student Movement, Alessandra M. Rosa

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

On the night of April 20, 2010, a group of students from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Río Piedras campus, met to organize an indefinite strike that quickly broadened into a defense of accessible public higher education of excellence as a fundamental right and not a privilege. Although the history of student activism in the UPR can be traced back to the early 1900s, the 2010-2011 strike will be remembered for the student activists’ use of new media technologies as resources that rapidly prompted and aided the numerous protests.

This activist research entailed a critical ethnography and a critical …

Vowels In The 305: A First Pass At Miami Latino English, Lydda Lopez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, I present preliminary findings of the first-large scale, systematic study of English Latino vowels in Miami. Sociolinguistic interviews were conducted with 25 Miami-born participants: 10 Anglo Whites and 15 Latinos with varying degrees of Spanish fluency. Here I focus on the vowel quality (/i, ɪ, ai, æ, ɔ, u /) in the speech of the 2nd and 3rd generations to examine the nature of influence of Spanish on English in Miami over the past 60 years. I conduct an in-depth analysis of the vowel productions of two female speakers, Maria & Blaze, to show the range of …

"New" Social Movements: Alternative Modernities, (Trans)Local Nationalisms, And Solidarity Economies, Mamyrah Prosper

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation is the first project on the Haitian Platform for Advocacy for an Alternative Development- PAPDA, a nation-building coalition founded by activists from varying sectors to coordinate one comprehensive nationalist movement against what they are calling an Occupation. My work not only provides information on this under-theorized popular movement but also situates it within the broader literature on the postcolonial nation-state as well as Latin American and Caribbean social movements. The dissertation analyzes the contentious relationship between local and global discourses and practices of citizenship. Furthermore, the research draws on transnational feminist theory to underline the scattered hegemonies that …

The Prison System And The Media: How “Orange Is The New Black” Engages With The Prison As A Normalizing Agent, Eunice Louis

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this project is to ascertain the ways in which Orange is the New Black uses its platform to either complicate or reify narratives about the prison system, prisoners and their relationship to the state. This research uses the works of Giorgio Agamben, Colin Dayan, Michelle Alexander and Lisa Guenther to situate the ways the state uses the prison and social narratives about the prison to extend its control on certain populations beyond prison walls through police presence, parole, the war on drugs and prison fees.

From that basis, this work argues that while Orange does challenge some …